House Call
by Rabble Rouser
Summary: Chapel receives a surprise visit from McCoy at Med School.


House Call

By Rabble Rouser

DATE:  March 5, 2004

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I adapted Seema's ficlet challenge as a gift for Djinn: Give me a fandom to work in, and exactly two of the following:

- a pairing

- a character

- a setting

- an object

and I will write you a ficlet. So I got McCoy, Chapel, and her place, lost years era;-)

Thanks to Djinn for the beta! 

© 2004 Rabble Rouser

v v v

"Christine! I know you're in there."  
  
Chapel's head whipped up when she heard that all too familiar voice. "You can't come in!"  
  
What the hell was McCoy doing at her door? She took in her dorm room with a feeling of despair before launching Operation Cover-up. From the irate sound of McCoy's knocking and loud demands to be let in, she didn't have much time before he sent the Floor Nazi her way demanding an explanation—or worse entrance.  
  
Thank God it was just one room. Food wrappers and remains went down the recycler. The space smelled a bit rank—the best she could do was throw open a window. The rush of cool air hit her face like a slap. The sunshine that the window let in didn't improve the room's looks. Underwear and sweatshirts fell to the floor as she scooped them up into her arms from chairs, shelves, her desk, and off the floor to stuff them down a duffel bag while kicking the clothes that escaped her under the bed. She threw the comforter over her unmade bed and gave one last panicked look around her.  
  
She flung open the door to almost have McCoy finish his knock on her head.  
  
Chapel was taken aback at the changes in him. A beard? She was mad enough at the intrusion to remark that covering up his face was an improvement but in the end didn't have the heart to say it. That was always her problem. She wasn't good at inflicting pain, and too good at taking it. The thought made her voice hard. "You have my comm. Next time use it."  
  
"I did. Several times over the last two days. You didn't answer. And you haven't gone to class for a week."  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
"One of your classmates was concerned about you."  
  
"Spencer." It had to be. No one else but her fellow _Enterprise_ alum would think of contacting McCoy. _Damn_. There was never any escaping them. Even with that part of her life being over. Supposedly. She sighed and waved him in with a bow. "Welcome to Chez Chapel. So good of you to invite yourself."  
  
"Sarcasm doesn't become you."  
  
"You're just not used to it from me. You used to be my boss. Now you're not even Starfleet. You can't put me down on report for insubordination." She looked him straight in the eye to make sure he got her message: you are no longer the boss of me.  
  
She found that was a mistake. Those blue eyes bore down on her like a laser. They saw too much. She dropped her eyes and walked to the desk and fell heavily into the chair beside it.  
  
She heard him seating himself on the bed beside her desk. She looked up as he laid his hand on top of hers. Just that simple human contact almost undid her and she felt tears threaten.  
  
"I miss you," he said. He moved his hand to tilt her head up to look at him. "I just want to help you, Christine." She jerked her head away and for a minute his hand hung in the air as if he didn't know what to do with it, then it dropped, and she saw both his hands clench tightly at the comforter. He looked as if he'd like to shake her. Part of her wished he would.  
  
She saw his eyes roam around her room. She knew it looked like a hotel room. Occupied, not lived in. Even after nearly a year here, there was little that marked it hers. No posters or pictures. T'Lel's room across from her had far more personality from what she could tell from her rare peeks inside from an open door. She guessed that was bad. That her room was less expressive than a Vulcan's.  
  
"It's amazing. You could have gotten something off campus—instead you chose to live in a space as small as the quarters on the ship."  
  
"Feel at home?"  
  
"Damn near claustrophobic is what I feel."  
  
"Me too." She hadn't realized she had spoken aloud until she saw McCoy's raise an eyebrow. She shrugged. "Curse of the medical student. From dorm to classes to lab to library to dorm…"  
  
"Except you haven't been going to classes. Which could get you automatically flunked. After how hard you've worked? What the blazes is going on with you?"  
  
"If you'd kept in touch you might know a little better." She had to grin at his scowl. It almost made him look like the McCoy she knew. "You know, with that beard and outfit you look like one of Doctor Severin's groupies." She fingered the medallion hanging from a chain about his neck. It was as if he was trying to look as little  
like fleet as possible.  
  
He grunted. "Well, a smile. Promising. And you didn't answer my question."  
  
She felt her face grow hot. The truth is she didn't have an answer. Not just one, and not any that seemed adequate. She knew she should feel so grateful to be at Stanford. In this institution in love with its own legend that few could ever dream of attending.  
  
She slumped in her chair and gave a wobbly smile. "No excuse, sir." She waited for the lecture. To hear spoken aloud the beating she gave herself every day.  
  
McCoy folded his arms and glared at her, then seemed to make a supreme effort to soften his expression and put his hands on his knees. He began quietly. "Okay, let me guess. You're damn tired of being a student. You're wondering if you can deal with the consequences of failing, of a patient dying under your hands—"  
  
"I have—"  
  
"It's not the same," he snapped. He took a deep breath and seemed to gather himself. "As a doctor, you'll have to live with knowing their treatment was under your direction. Having been a nurse you know that too well. You're even wondering if you can deal with the consequences of success—of gaining even more responsibility. And every day you get closer to graduation is a day you get closer to having to live out there again, and make all the jagged pieces of your life fit--family, loves, friends, and finding out the job demands you do all the other things less than well."  
  
"Just who are you referring to here?"  
  
"You. Me. Us. You're forgetting who you're talking to, my dear. It may be hard to believe, but I was a medical student too. Now, I could be wrong, it could be there's a personal crisis in your life. But I know you. You're damn fine in a crisis, and a crisis wouldn't have you sitting here red in the face and flustered because you don't know what to say."  
  
"I just...Len, I just needed this to stop for a while. I feel…trapped. You know Roger's mother keeps in touch. She expects me to keep 'the legacy' alive, continue Roger's research." She felt her face tighten. "Haven't I given enough of my life to being the woman of the great man? And my family." She shook her head. "You know, when I was a kid I thought all grown-ups were called 'doctor.' " She laughed bitterly. "Now that Roger is dead my own father is expecting me to bring more glory to the Chapel name. Something small like…oh resurrect the dead."  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"To be a doctor. An ordinary, honest-to-goodness physician." The words surprised her as they left her lips. "And I want to go back out there. I miss the _Enterprise_."  
  
She saw his mouth twist down, as if he tasted something foul. "Even without Spock?"  
  
"Damn you, Len." She moved to the bed and hit him on the arm, hard. "We were family. He wasn't the reason I stayed after Roger."  
  
"Yeah, we're like family—scattered, estranged..."  
  
Chapel remembered the last time she had seen Kirk and McCoy together. Lieutenant Fisher's funeral. They'd seemed to both be trying to connect with each other without quite meeting. Like some link was missing. Strange. She had always thought Kirk had been the bridge between Spock and McCoy, that without him they'd have nothing in common, would soon drift away from each other. But that Kirk and McCoy were different. Real friends. Had it been more complex than that? Had Spock somehow in some way she had never grasped kept Kirk and McCoy together? Or was he the reason they had broken apart?  
  
Spock. She tried to remember what it had been like to love him. Was it even love when it wasn't requited? Like that question about whether a falling tree makes a sound with no one to hear it? No, lovers had dignity, those harboring a crush were ridiculous. McCoy himself had been one of those most eager to point that out. Again. And again.  
  
McCoy captured her hand again. He was rubbing her palm with his thumb, caressing the back of her hand, staring at it as if it fascinated him. He brought it quickly to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist, before dropping it. "I'm sorry I mentioned him."  
  
"It's an almost Pavlovian response from anyone from my Enterprise days. See Christine. Think of Spock. Speak of Spock. Or pointedly don't. Just like everyone from before that thinks every sad look has to be about Roger. Well, it isn't. I'm not stuck and don't know why anyone thinks otherwise."  
  
"I'm glad." He started, as if he had been caught at something. "I mean...I didn't much like watching how unhappy you were."  
  
"I know." She passed her hand over his hair in affection, and hugged him hard. Before she could release him, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. She felt his beard tickling her face and started laughing.  
  
He broke the kiss, an annoyed look on his face. "What's so damn funny?"  
  
"Sorry, I think it's the beard."  
  
"I'll shave it off."  
  
"Don't." She said it more sharply then she meant to and bit her lip trying to keep herself from saying the rest. But she thought he heard it anyway. Don't change on my account. She didn't want to hurt Len. She pressed herself closer to him rather than away, placed her arms around him, and tried out kissing him.  
  
It was…nice. Not passionate, she didn't feel moved or shaken, and she found she liked that. She pulled away from him a bit to look at him. Wondering. Seeing all his constant teasing of her, of Spock, forming into a different picture.  
  
"You're not in love with me, are you?"  
  
He looked at her a long time as if he were thinking which answer she wanted and she didn't like that.  
  
"No." His arms tightened around her. "But I do want you, Christine."  
  
It was the right answer. She didn't want love from him. Loving someone who didn't love you back—or in the way you wanted—was a terrible thing.  
  
"I've been alone so long," she said softly in his ear.  
  
And she had. First she had been Roger's Penelope, then she'd mooned over Spock so visibly that both he and every possibly interested male on the Enterprise had stayed far away. Then medical school where she was so much older, so much more serious than her classmates. She didn't love Len. But want? A man pressed closely to her, wanting her. Touching her, making her real to herself. As long as they could keep it light.  
  
His hands began to roam around her body over, then under, her clothes, lightly, tentatively, then more possessively with every minute. She gave her body over to him, closing her eyes tightly. She was afraid to look at his face, see the lie he had told. Because if he loved her, she couldn't do this. And she needed this. So she wouldn't look.  
  
But the sensations he was creating jolted her, and she found her eyes flying open, looking into his. The intensity, the wildness there scared her.  
  
Is that what Spock had seen in her? If she was to look, then she had to set herself not to think. Not to think that maybe McCoy thought he already had found all he wanted in his arms. Because she already knew all she had found was a place to rest.

The End 

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